


skipping through it (and stopping at you)

by pastisregret



Series: ask and answer [26]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, F/M, Pregnancy, Time Skips, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 16:42:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20049241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastisregret/pseuds/pastisregret
Summary: prompt: can you combine a baby au fic with a time travel au? i did.or, adrien goes through time skips. marinette helps.





	skipping through it (and stopping at you)

**Author's Note:**

> hahaHA i lowkey love this even tho it's a writing style i am NOT used to at ALL

Adrien didn’t know how it started. He’d supposed it had to do with the time the universe got a little altered. A kwami holder going back in time. An akuma or two that changed things up a bit. A flash from the future going into the past, affecting God knows what in the present.

When it had occurred for the first time, he had been seventeen. A good year. He had gone on a few dates with Kagami. Shared magazines and ripped into fashion trends with Chloé. Got to hang out with Marinette more and more, see past the awkward stage their friendship had always been around.

He skipped ahead a few days, a jump he hadn’t expected. An akuma had occurred during the time he’d been out. His dad had gone on a trip to Italy. He passed a test. Kagami asked him out to the movies.

Adrien didn’t remember any of it. One moment at his computer, the next staring down at his textbook in the library, Nino telling him a joke.

With good reason, he had been worried. Plagg assured him it must’ve been a fluke, something Master Fu could fix.

Master Fu hadn’t been able to. He checked his books and deciphered old languages and checked everywhere for a solution but hadn’t found a way out, hadn’t found the right brew or ointment or saying that would restore a little balance.

No, he had merely been able to provide an explanation. _It happens sometimes_, he had said. A mix-up that affected one side of the duo. A mistake that wouldn’t be fixed by any one person, but the laws of nature. The universe balancing out. However long it might’ve took, they’d have to find out.

Adrien didn’t have that type of time to spare. But still, he had gritted his teeth and smiled and said he’d get by. And he did. He got a journal, wrote notes for things that happened every hour on the hour. The first big skip had been the only time he missed so many days, but still, he waited in case it happened again.

When he was eighteen, he had gotten the hang of it. The skips would be random, his own version of hiccups. They could skip anywhere from a few hours to a full day, but he made it through. He moved out, got an apartment and tried to put up with it. He thought he was doing well too, way better than Master Fu and Plagg had thought he’d be.

Kagami and him had cooled their relationship, the skips too much for someone who lived with no schedule and someone who couldn’t keep a schedule. Chloé had been the first to find out after years of being friends, but surprisingly kept quiet about it. Protected him in whatever way she could, which usually meant random calls to make sure his head was screwed on right.

He didn’t tell anyone else. It would be too much for some to take in, or maybe just enough that he’d be outcasted from his friends. So no, Adrien had decided. No one in his social ring could find out, not yet.

Ladybug included.

Not until she cornered him one patrol, a patrol he skipped into and hadn’t realized was going on. He had pulled out his baton to record the length of the skip and she had stopped him, demanded she tell him what was going on. He had been acting weird, like him but _not_. She looked him in the eyes and begged for something, anything that could explain what was going on.

So he did, as hard as it was. And she promised to protect him, to deal with the issue and get him through whatever it was.

When he was nineteen, he messed up. He had skipped a day ahead into an akuma attack, fist out to pound it with Ladybug and too confused to realize he had only two beeps left. She took command before he could, grabbing his body and yo-yoing away to some dark alley. He detransformed as their feet had hit the ground, and hadn’t begun to think of what would happen next before she detransformed as well.

_It’s only fair_, she had said, eyes adjusting to the dark and hands feeling skin for the first time. _If I’m finding out right now, you better know who I am so I can deal with this outside of the suit._

The reveal hadn’t been as climatic as he thought. Marinette knew it was him the moment he told her the skips were occurring. Marinette had seen himself as Adrien exhibit the same things she’d seen in Chat. Distant look. Hands and mouth and body moving but not quite there… not quite _living_ in the same sense she had gotten used to.

In any case, she had assured him she was by his side, ready to protect no matter what.

When he was twenty, the skips got shorter. No more day long skips, but hours now. Chloé didn’t complain as much about it, too preoccupied with the dates she had planned with dozens of pretty girls to care. Nino and Alya were finally clued in on it, Adrien pressured by Marinette to admit what was going on.

_They’re worried_, she said. _They deserve to know._

So, he let them know. And they promised to keep it a secret, promised to help out whenever they noticed he was out of it, his mind off somewhere else.

He also clued them in on something else. His girlfriend, Marinette.

When he was twenty-one, it became easier. Marinette was by his side, walking him through everything as best as she could. It was always better when they were together, something Fu had told him must’ve been in part to the Ladybug miraculous, the little bit of luck they needed to upset the bad.

It was when she was gone that he’d skip. Adrien would be brushing his teeth in the morning after she left, or just getting ready for a quick stop at the gym, before coming back at lunch, or driving to the bakery. Troubling, to say the least.

She moved in not long after. It made sense anyways, with their long time spent together as partners.

When he turned twenty-two, a lot of big things happened. The skips went from hours to half hours. Chloé had begun to date Kagami. Alya and Nino had gotten engaged. Master Fu passed away.

His father was arrested and charged with crimes against the country for being Hawkmoth. Not surprising, but also something he had hoped wouldn’t come down to.

Marinette got pregnant. That had been a surprise.

The next eight months were a whirlwind. He’d be out shopping one moment and find himself home with dozens of baby clothes and a receipt he was glad the Agreste name could afford. Adrien found himself researching all he could, up late at night and writing down notes so he could keep track of everything even while he skipped.

He got scared, worried he’d turn into his dad.

He got excited, glad at the chance of bringing something into the world with Marinette.

He thought of how it’d be like when he had a baby to take care of, a baby who didn’t know their dad would time skip every now and then. He got scared again, along with something else.

When Adrien skipped ahead for the last time, he was at the hospital. Marinette had gone into labor, and somehow Adrien had gotten the two there. He stayed by her side for hours, too worried if he left her he’d lose out on the biggest moment of his life. He ignored the doctors and the nurses, turned down food offers. He sat next to her, through the long hours that were probably the most important in his life.

He knew it was worth it all when he heard the first cry. A belting one, one that rivaled Marinette’s. One that belonged to a bundle of joy pressed onto Marinette’s skin, now calmed down and sporting blonde hair like his dad and eyes neither had the time to check. Who was the perfect balance of chaos and destruction, a mix of bad and good luck, and a solution to the problem no one had an answer for.

Finally, the universe was in balance.

**Author's Note:**

> mari-cheres on tumblr, inuyashas_ on twitter


End file.
